Reviews of anything and everything worth watching on TV or reading in books...

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

The Highlanders

The Highlanders is
an important serial for a number of reasons – not only is it Troughton’s second
serial, wherein we see him settle into the character further following his
rather strange first serial, it is also the introduction of fan-favourite Jamie
McCrimmon and the last real historical for some 16 years.Sadly, this serial doesn’t really serve its
primary function; Troughton’s Doctor is still as unDoctorly as ever, flipping
frequently from persona to persona.

The first thing about this serial of note, however, is the
incredible violence on display; whilst the serial is set during one of the most
bloodthirsty periods of British history, quite how much violence is displayed
is shocking even now.Interestingly,
until now the travellers have always arrived either before or after the most
horrific periods of history – looking at stories like The Reign of Terror and The
Myth Makers – but here, instead, the group of time travellers arrives right
in the middle of a skirmish, and subsequently are thrown head-first into the
historical events.Not only is their grim realistically realised
death aplenty on screen – some of which we’re able to glimpse briefly thanks to
censored material – we’re also told of the disgusting acts taking place
off-screen.Women and children are being
murdered, Scots are being hung left, right and centre, and, perhaps most
appallingly of all, the English are making a tidy profit from the sale of
prisoners as slaves.

Following the grim violence, the TARDIS materialises, with
Ben as chipper and optimistic as ever, declaring that they’re home.Of course, trouble isn’t far away, and Ben
and Polly fling themselves to the ground as a cannonball comes roaring at
them.The Laird, injured in the Redcoat
attack, is laid in bed, surrounded by Jamie and the other Scots.Outside, the Doctor removes his stovepipe hat
to replace it with a Tam O’Shanter, more in keeping with the locale.Accused of being English spies, the
travellers are taken prisoner by the Scots, Jamie and Alexander.Once the Scotsmen promise not to “molest” the
travellers, the Doctor begins to administer aid to the Laird.Ben’s nonchalance with the weapon he was
handling leads to the arrival of the Redcoats.The humour in this serial is incredibly dark, but at no point detracts
from the serious undertones.

The Redcoats surround the cottage, led by Ffinch, and they
swiftly deal with the Scots within – what is telling of the time is that they
must “shoot first and take no risks”, as the battle has led them to be reckless
and desperate.Alexander’s fruitless
death, trying to draw the Redcoats away, shows just how easily life hung in the
balance during the time, again providing a stark contrast from the humour which
underlies much of the dialogue.The complaint
about there being no “pickings” for the Redcoats nicely foreshadows the subplot
soon to arise.Ffinch is wonderfully
performed by Michael Elwyn, all stiff upper lip and no nonsense.Once the Redcoats are inside the cottage
though, things become rather more frivolous once more, as Troughton’s Doctor
dons a bizarre German accent and the pseudonym “Doktor Von Wer”.

The action is observed by Solicitor Grey, played with
malevolent malice by the brilliant David Garth.Grey is a man with no regard for human life whatsoever – in contrast
with many of the soldiers, who fight for their King and country, Grey is only
interested in the financial benefits which arise from the war.Perkins, his assistant, played with
obsequious charm by Sydney Arnold is wonderful too, and the pair’s dialogue is
laced with sardonic wit.

The group are very quickly split up, with the Doctor and Ben
ending up with the Scotsmen as Polly ends up lost with a local girl,
Kirsty.Polly’s character is fascinating
here; as in The Smugglers, Polly is a
powerful female, taking control of the situation.Kirsty is a whining, snivelling peasant,
idiotic and simpering to the extreme, and it allows Polly’s character to step
to the fore magnificently.Her
suggestion that girls of the time can do nothing more useful than cry and whine
is brilliant, and Kirsty’s sullen responses to the danger they are in are
brilliantly realised.

The Doctor and Ben, meanwhile, get into trouble with the
invading forces of Redcoats, to the point that they are strung up on the
gallows alongside a number of Scottish insurgents; saved from certain death, by
no less than Grey and Perkins, the group are carried away to be placed in
prison rather than hung.That the Doctor
claims his freedom using the “Aliens Act” is fantastically delivered, and the
group are escorted first to prison, and then “perhaps a sea voyage?”The first episode ends with Polly giving up
on the moaning Scottish girl and heading off into the moor, falling into an
animal trap on her way.

Episode 2 continues with Polly trapped, and Kirsty swiftly
joining her in the pit.With the arrival
of Ffinch and his men, however, the opportunity for the girls to escape
arrives.These scenes are where Elwyn is
at his best, all bluster and dour acerbic shouting.He is a typical Lieutenant of the time,
promoted by rank of birth rather than by earning his way, and the way in which
the two girls are able to trick him highlights his stupidity wonderfully.Likewise, the way in which he deals with the
men is brilliantly over-the-top, as he threatens them all with hundreds of
lashings every time he gives them a simple order – “Fetch my horse, and if you’re
not back within the hour, three hundred lashes a piece!” is one of my favourite
lines in the entire serial, preposterously overblown as it is.The comedy here is brilliant, as Ffinch is
left grumbling in a pit, robbed of his food and money and left tied up.Ffinch’s character is petty, childish and yet
all the more charming for it.

In the prison cell, meanwhile, the Doctor, Ben and the Scots
are all having a rather terrible time of things.There’s an interesting discussion about the
values of the medical system in place at the time, wherein Jamie is baffled by
the Doctor’s credentials on the basis that he hasn’t even bled the Laird
yet.The Doctor, here, becomes even more
unpredictable – his behaviour has been erratic since his regeneration, and his
cries of “Down with King George”, as well as his encouragement of the Jacobites
to sing their anthem, it seems rather frivolous and dangerous – whilst he is
taken away, as requested, still under the guise the German Doktor, the others
are left in the prison, under the angered gaze of the Redcoat guards.

This second episode also sees the introduction of Trask,
played with unmitigated relish by Dallas Cavell.As the pirate captain, he is all “arr”s and stereotypical
sayings like “What in thunder?” and “You swab!”The discussion between Trask and Grey allows us a glimpse at what the
future has in store for the prisoners; the promise that the Highlanders will
work twice as hard as “one of your black slaves” is ominous.

Once the Doctor is taken to Grey’s office, we are once more
confused by the Doctor’s behaviour.It
seems that, once more, he is betraying the Scots to save his own skin; of
course, it is all a ruse, and the standard is used to confuse the solicitor,
and he is gagged, bound and swiftly thrown into a closet.The Doctor’s quip “I’ve never seen a silent lawyer
before” is brilliantly delivered, with a quirkiness only Troughton is capable
of.Perkins re-entrance leads to one of
the most disturbing scenes, with Troughton’s Doctor taking great pleasure in
the trick which he plays upon the clerk, forcing him to head-butt the table
repeatedly to clear the noises which he is persuaded are subconscious, although
actually emanating from the trapped Grey.The physical abuse seems to be relished by the Doctor, as he
purposefully fools the paper-pusher into closing his eyes to deal with the
banging headache caused by too much reading.

The comedy continues to be ramped up as we cut back to
Ffinch in his hole, becoming discovered by the soldiers he sent for his
horse.His desperate attempts to bribe
the soldier to pull him out of the pit, despite his predicament of having been
robbed by the girls, are fantastic, and again he resorts to threats of lashes –
500 this time – if they don’t get him free.What is wonderful is the dead pan way in which the Sergeant pushes
Ffinch’s buttons.

The subplot involving Trask’s prisoners and the slave market
has strong echoes back to The Romans,
when we last saw a companion being manacled and man-handled onto a ship intended
for slavery.The discussion with the
former skipper, Willy, is both disturbing and comical – particularly the
repetition of the misunderstanding of Ben’s terminology with the word “fiddle”.At this point, the serial splits into three
separate storylines, all occurring at once; Whilst he is loaded into The Annabelle,
and Polly and Kirsty are heading back to Ffinch’s base to blackmail him.The Doctor, meanwhile, is continuing on his
unpredictable mood swings with a touch of transvesticism, this time donning a
peasant woman’s garb to infiltrate the base too.

And that raises the most interesting question – who exactly is the real Doctor? (If you’ll excuse
the pun!)At no point since the Doctor
regenerated into his current form has there seemed to be any stability to his
performance.From his third-person
dialogue in The Power of the Daleks,
and his madcap behaviour with recorders, daggers and diaries, to his
impersonation of an Earth Examiner, to his seeming disregard for human life and
relishing of physical abuse here, to his strange German accent and his fetish
for headwear – “I’d like a hat like that!” – and now his newest persona of an
old washer woman, we never know exactly where we stand with Troughton’s
Doctor.Whilst Hartnell had flashes of
comedy genius, usually hidden under his gruff exterior, this Doctor is quite
the opposite, predominantly a clown with the occasional serious outburst.But that is what is so magnificent about
Troughton’s portrayal.We, as an
audience, are helped to empathise with the companions rather than the Doctor
simply because we, too, don’t know quite where we stand with him.

Ben is due to be punished, meanwhile, for the destruction of
the contracts, and there is a sardonic humour to this; the obsession with bureaucracy
is wonderful, and the insistence that the ship cannot sail without the
three-copied forms completed is the saving grace for the Scottish.The third episode ends, then, with the Doctor,
in drag, approaching Perkins, Polly and Kirsty and forcing himself into their game
of whist to pass the time.He draws a
pistol on the hapless clerk, and the three escape the inn with Perkins having
to wait for ten minutes, in fear of his life.Meanwhile, Ben is bound and thrown out to sea, with only a stream of
bubbles breaking the surface...

Of course, Ben hasn’t died, but has freed himself from the
ropes and swam to shore, when he is spotted by an armed soldier – none other
than the Doctor, in yet another disguise.This entire final episode is, once again, laced with extreme violence and
uncompromising images of death and brutality.Whilst Ben is reunited with the other time travellers in the inn, the
Doctor decides to head to the pirate ship to seek an audience with Captain “ARRRR”
Trask, Grey and Perkins.Blackmail is
used once more as a plot device, as the Doctor claims to know the whereabouts
of Bonnie Prince Charlie, but will only share the information if the price is
right.

In the meantime, Polly and Kirsty are rowing up alongside
the Annabelle, seeking a reunion with her father.This scene is rather touching – following Colin’s
claim that he’d do anything to hear his daughter’s voice one last time before
he dies, he believes he is dreaming when he hears her calling from
outside.They deliver weapons and share
their plan with the Highlanders trapped within the hold, and then, as Grey,
Trask, Perkins and two sailors enter, led by the Doctor, the Highlanders break
from their slumber with cries of “Creag An Tuir!”

My only issue with this particularly serial, in fact, is
that it feels very much like a retread of The
Smugglers, which was only aired 11 weeks prior to this.Due to the season breaks, The Smugglers was included as part of
season 4.Had it aired as the final
story of season 3, with the break before season 4 began, this repetition would
be forgivable.Here, though, I find it
simply too similar to the last historical to have aired.It would have been nice, for the last
historical of the run, to have had a complete change of tact and pace.Instead, it all feels a little familiar.

Of course, the time travellers save the day, former skipper
Willy gets his boat back and sets sail to France with the Highlanders on
board.The turncoat clerk Perkins gets a
lovely moment to shine where, once he has allied himself with Willy and the
Scots, snaps his fingers in Grey’s face – something which provides him with
tremendous “pleasure”.Trask has been
dealt with, shoved overboard by Jamie into “the firth”, and Grey is given his
comeuppance from the wonderful Ffinch after he has, once more, been blackmailed
into aiding and abetting the Doctor and his companions, including the newly
arrived Jamie.Polly’s flirting with
Ffinch is a wonderful little touch, something which has been hinted at all the
way through, and the group are now truly grateful to him – by his own volition,
he has had Grey arrested and removed, whereby saving them.As such, he has earned that peck on the
cheek.

The group return to the TARDIS, and despite his
apprehension, Polly leads Jamie into the ship, and they dematerialise once
more...

If I’m honest, I’ll be sad to see the traditional historical
go.Whilst the sci-fi stories, and the
pseudo-historicals, are the real ‘bread and butter’ now of what the series is
aiming for, it gripes me somewhat that people still claim the historicals are
boring or pointless.They include some
of the finest performances, and certainly some of the strongest scripts, of the
entire show’s run.Lucarotti in
particular is something of an unsung hero, and along with Donald Cotton’s The Myth Makers, these are some of the
greatest scripts the show has ever produced, performed with aplomb by all
involved, with magnificent set design and costuming.

However, it is easy to see why, with the role being taken
over by Troughton, the decision was made to abolish the straight
historical.With Hartnell, the Doctor
fitted in perfectly regardless of the scenario, playing it straight, as in The Aztecs and The Reign of Terror, or
playing it purely for laughs as in The
Romans and The Myth Makers.Troughton, though, is always too
frivolous.More than that, though, is
his proactivity.Unlike Hartnell’s
Doctor, who seemed happy to go along with things and was heavily invested in
his own mantra about not changing “one line” of history, it is difficult to
imagine Troughton’s Doctor having the same level of restrain.He enjoys getting his hands dirty, throwing
himself fully into stories.

That Troughton is so proactive a character may well be the
reason that the show has lasted as long as it has, but it is also certainly what
killed the historical.Still, swings and
roundabouts, eh?

About Me

Scott Edwards is a teacher of English and Theatre Studies, with a BAHons in English Literature and Film Studies.He is also a self-professed ‘ming-mong’, and is now going to return to some Classic Doctor Who.